Sterophile's not so nice review of Bryston

Agree with those members who believe that audiophile mag component reviews are for mere entertainment & glossy pix. Nothing more! Read them with this in mind.
I know a reviewer who works for a audio e-magazine & he told me that the editor of that e-magazine denied him any further opportunity to write component reviews after that editor read some of my friend's reviews-to-be-published & saw just how candid my friend was re. the audio components. My friend wrote it like it was calling good, good & bad, bad. That just did not fly at this e-magazine!
So, you can imagine how it is at S'phile, TAS & other glossy rags......

As another member wrote, learn to read between the lines - that's key! You can tell if the component is good, bad or ugly in its sonics.
FWIW. YMMV.

By far all of the above is far more entertaining than any of the audio mags could ever hope to be.

Thanks!

OK, so perhaps reviewers don't exactly "buy" the gear they keep around for reference. But they do keep certain pieces around to compare with review equipment, and it appears to me that they try to keep gear that is particualrly good at one or two things, and/or better than average overall for a particular retail price point, even if this "choice" is colored by manufacturer "discounts".

That said, I don't always agree with reviewer's "choices" based on my (very) limited experience. But it is a "choice" on their part nevertheless. I guess I doubt very much that reviewers universally accept, keep and tout crap gear just because it is free, or worse, incentivised.

Since I have never owned or reviewed Bryston, I can not comment on them; however, I have owned and auditioned equipment reviewed be Stereophile. There have been times when I thought a component should have gotten an "A" rating as opposed to a "B", but in general I have found their reviews to be accurate.

The press is very powerful. Reviewers can makes us feel good about a product we own or want to buy, but they can also make us feel bad as well for buying a certain product. Suddenly, it is no longer about how it sounds or if we like it.

I had some speakers once that the respected reviewers disdained. I loved them and to me they compared well against the magazines' Class B rated products.

Eventually, I changed out my system to get a more "respected" brand name speaker. It ended up costing me a lot of money and time to get my system back to the level I felt I was at before making the change.